Not Applicable.
Not Applicable.
The present invention relates to establishing a voice telephone call with an entity having a presence on the Internet when a calling party does not know the telephone number of the called party.
In establishing a POTS (plain old telephone service) voice call between a calling party and a called party, the calling party must dial a telephone number that identifies the telephone of the called party. Sometimes, this identification may be through an intermediate number which is translated into an actual destination telephone number, such as in a toll-free (i.e., xe2x80x9c800xe2x80x9d number) service. Nevertheless, the number dialed uniquely identifies the called party.
Even when telephone numbers have been known or used in the past by the calling party, they can be easily misplaced and are easily forgotten because they are usually just a string of arbitrary numbers. In the event that the calling party does not know an appropriate telephone number for the called party, they may search for a telephone number using telephone company directory assistance, published telephone books, on-line search engines, and other sources. Typically in such a search, at least a personal or business name of the called party must be known. If the name is not accurately specified, then the number search can be difficult and time consuming. Even with the correct name, searching can still be inconvenient and/or time-consuming. For a called party that is a commercial enterprise desiring to be called by potential customers, any significant difficulty in identifying the appropriate telephone number can result in lost business, for example.
Many businesses and other entities seek to interact with the public (e.g., consumers) via the Internet. The Internet comprises a plurality of interconnected computer networks. Each communication packet sent over the Internet includes fields that specify the source and destination address of the packet according to Internet Protocol (IP) addresses assigned to the network interface nodes involved. Currently, assigned addresses comprise 32 bits, although future standards allow for 128-bit addresses. The 32-bit addresses are normally written by breaking the 32 bits into 4 groups of 8 bits each and writing the decimal equivalents of each group separated by periods (e.g., 208.25.106.10).
Since numerical IP addresses are inconvenient to use and remember, a protocol for assigning and accessing logical names is used known as the domain name system (DNS). DNS servers are deployed within the Internet which perform a translation function between a logical domain name (also known as a uniform resource locator, or URL) such as xe2x80x9csprint.comxe2x80x9d and its numerical equivalent xe2x80x9c208.25.106.10xe2x80x9d. After receiving an IP address back from a DNS server, a computer can forward data packets to the IP address and establish a connection or session with the remote computer. A URL or other logical name being used by an entity may become one of the most familiar labels that the public associates with the entity since they can be chosen to be both descriptive and easy to remember.
A user views web-pages of a desired Website within a browser application that navigates to web-pages in response to URL""s input by the user within the browser. In the event that a Website user may wish to have a telephonic voice call with a contact representative of the business or entity, appropriate telephone numbers are oftentimes (but not always) displayed on the web-pages themselves (or means may be provided to actually complete a voice connection over the Internet itself, known as voice over IP or VOIP). However, users may still not be able to identify a desired telephone number or create an Internet-based voice connection because 1) no telephone number or VOIP link is given, 2) a Website may be temporarily unavailable due to equipment failure, and 3) there may be many potential customers that do not have access or do not desire to use the Internet.
The present invention has the advantage of allowing a POTS voice telephone call to be placed to an entity having a presence on the Internet when a calling party does not know the telephone number of the called entity and without the need of the calling party to have any access to the Internet itself. All that is needed is the URL used by the entity in connection with a web-page. Web-pages would no longer need to explicitly list a telephone number. Furthermore, the URL may even be known to those who are not Internet users because of advertising or other publicity.
In one aspect of the invention, a method is provided for establishing a POTS call between a calling party and a called party wherein the called party is identified by uniform resource locator (URL) information. A first POTS call is established from the calling party to a DNS lookup service using a predetermined access number. The URL information is transferred from the calling party to the DNS lookup service via the first POTS call. A target telephone number of the called party is retrieved from a DNS database of the DNS lookup service in response to the URL information. A second POTS call is established between the calling party and the called party in response to the target telephone number.